Without going through the details of the give and take over the past
week, I was struck by a couple points.
- I think there is agreement that someone should not be able to
change someone else's schema. However, someone else can make a
parallel schema and assert a correspondence. The intent may be
malicious or it just may be an attempt to add capability or a
different perspective. Thus, if maliciousness is not an issue, then
the issue is not trust but competency and opinion.
- This brings me to the question of data represented by a schema.
What inferences can be drawn if the data is contradictory. Take for
example this discussion. Imagine representing the assertions about
the correspondence between RDF and SHOE. Again, the issue is not one
of trust but of opinion that in some cases has direct contradictions.
Can more be inferred than a conversation is taking place?
- The concept of trust needs to be extended to a measure of authority
on who is making an assertion. Certainly Jeff Heflin's statements
should probably carry more weight on SHOE and Dan Connolly's more
weight on RDF, but how do you factor in a new opinion from left field
that brings insight by asking basic questions that the experts were
all sure were already answered? Is there a question of trust? How
do you assess validity?
It appears that we're trying to draw conclusions from information we
have yet to determine how to accurately represent. Moreover, we are
trying to provide a means to represent information without
controlling what that information is. From a Web perspective, this
is how it needs to be. While keeping an eye on a greater goal, might
it not be helpful to make sure we can assert things in a Web
environment and unambiguously know what has been asserted before we
draw conclusions.
Ken